Ditch using cat, just use aiofiles

Author: vkottler

runtimepy/util.py

@@ -3,39 +3,23 @@
 """
 
 # built-in
-import asyncio
 from os import sep
 from pathlib import Path
-from shutil import which
-from typing import Iterator, Optional, Union
+from typing import Iterator, Union
 
 # third-party
 import aiofiles
 from vcorelib.paths import normalize
 
 ROOT_PATH = Path(sep)
-USE_CAT: Optional[bool] = None
 
 
-async def read_binary(path: Path, use_aiofiles: bool = False) -> bytes:
+async def read_binary(path: Path) -> bytes:
     """An async wrapper for reading file contents."""
 
-    global USE_CAT  # pylint: disable=global-statement
-    if USE_CAT is None:
-        USE_CAT = which("cat") is not None
-
-    # Avoid ballooning a thread pool with one-off reads.
-    if USE_CAT and not use_aiofiles:
-        proc = await asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(
-            "cat", str(path), stdout=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE
-        )
-        result, _ = await proc.communicate()
-
-    else:
-        async with aiofiles.open(path, mode="rb") as path_fd:
-            result = await path_fd.read()
-
-    return result
+    async with aiofiles.open(path, mode="rb") as path_fd:
+        result = await path_fd.read()
+    return result  # type: ignore
 
 
 def normalize_root(*src_parts: Union[str, Path]) -> Path:

tests/test_util.py

@@ -17,4 +17,3 @@ async def test_read_binary():
     """Test 'read_binary' invocations."""
 
     assert await read_binary(resource("test.txt"))
-    assert await read_binary(resource("test.txt"), use_aiofiles=True)